This blog is affiliated with a course at the School of Journalism & Electronic Media at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. I'll try to use it to share relevant news and information with the class, and anyone else who's interested.

Thursday, February 23, 2012

New Online Video, IPTV Numbers

New reports from ComScore and Parks Associates show continued growth in the use of online video and IPTV sources.
ComScore's Video Matrix report for January shows a 5% annual growth in unique viewers of online video, to 191 million in January 2012. Overall, 84.4% of U.S. Internet users reported watching at least one online video during January. The amount of online video being watched, on average, grew almost 56% from January 2010, to 22.6 hours of online video content viewed per month. The average length of videos watched also increased (22%) to 6.1 minutes. (It should be noted that the distribution of video lengths is neither normal, nor uniform, rather there are a lot of short videos (under 5 minutes) being watched, and an increasing number of longer streamed TV programs and movies that push the average up).
Various Google-related sites accounted for almost half of the 40 billion online videos watched in January. They also recorded the highest number of unique visitors, at 151 million. Hulu and VEVO were a distant second and third, with Hulu accounting for 877 million views, and VEVO 717 million, in contrast to Google's 18.8 billion. ComScore reported that in addition to the videos, viewers also saw 5.6 billion video ads, and that online video advertising reached 47% of the total U.S. population.

The Parks Associates study shows an increase in the ownership and use of various digital devices for accessing and displaying online videos. Sales during the past holiday season were quite brisk, with Apple reporting sales of 2.8 million Apple TVs, and Roku selling 1.5 million units last year. The report projects total sales of 14 million digital media receivers for 2012. Parks reports that 13% of U.S. broadband homes now own such devices, and that 31% regularly watch TV programs or movies accessed via the Internet and displayed on their TVs.

The numbers show that online video continues to be one of the fastest growing segments of the media universe, and is also developing into a serious and valuable option for advertisers.